


More Than Defeat

by mmmdraco



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-10 04:13:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end, rivals and friends aren't that different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than Defeat

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I mean no harm, I have no money... Stuff like that. Yeah.

"What are you doing back here again?"

"Trust me that it was against my better judgement, but I figured I'd come and read Weekly Go to you since no one else seems to be around to do the job."

"I could get the nurses to do it if I asked."

"And be annoyed when they stumbled over the words and the way to call the moves? Find a nurse here who can read out a kifu."

"I wouldn't mind if they were pretty."

Ogata rolled up the magazine and hit the bed next to Kuwabara's shoulder. "I walked past the nurse's station on my way in. I'm prettier than all of them." He took the magazine back. "And I know perfectly well how to read out a kifu."

"My knight in shining armor." Kuwabara coughed deeply and took several faltering breaths.

Ogata smoothed down his tie. "Actually, it's Armani, but in your condition, I can understand the confusion."

Kuwabara lifted his hand slowly and gestured for Ogata to come a bit closer. Ogata obliged, but closed his eyes to the sight of the IV shunt stretching the old man's veins. "Can I bum a cigarette off of you? I know you smoke that wussy kind, but I need something!"

Ogata pulled back and let fly with the magazine again. "You're in here because you're dying, old man. Those things did it to you. Besides, with the oxygen going, you could light us both on fire."

"I always thought you were flaming anyway."

"I wouldn't be the only go player who was... if I was."

"Ah, yes, the two boys. Wonderful go players, but horrible fashion sense. Young Touya almost made me glad to lose my eyesight."

"Are you doing okay, considering?"

"Considering the blindness or the cancer?"

"Either... Or... Both... You tell me. I only asked a question."

"Hmph." Kuwabara fumbled for a handkerchief on his bedside table and used it to caugh into a few more times. Ogata couldn't help but notice the specks of blood dotting the cloth all over, and especially not the fresh ones. The old man took a few more haggard breaths. "I know I'm dying. And I'm happy to go. These old hands can't hold the stones any longer. I can't even stay awake long enough to play a blind game, or keep my concentration up long enough for speed go. I can only live vicariously through the new generation for so long."

"Don't worry so much. I'll take care of your title when you're gone."

A thin trickle of spittle ran down the side of Kuwabara's mouth as he smiled. Ogata wiped it away with his own handkerchief quickly. "Annoying brat. I hope Kurata beats you for it."

"If anyone, it'll be Shindou."

"I knew from the first time I saw him that he could..." The old man trailed off as his head lolled to one side. Ogata lifted a hand to test the man's carotid artery with his fingertips. There was a pulse. A thin and threasy one, yes, but a pulse. He was asleep. It was just as well. Visiting hours were over.

\-----

"You know, Ogata, with how often you're here, I'm beginning to wonder if you ever play anymore. How are you making your money?"

"You know full well how easy it is to live when you have four titles. People pay me to walk into their salons without having to lay a single stone. It's boring as all hell."

"Is that why you spend so much time with an old man whose sole purpose in life is to infuriate you?"

Ogata handed a glass of water to the other man whose hand had started to reach out for it. "I doubt very highly that infuriating me is your only purpose. Are we not all here to walk the path to the Hand of God?"

"I didn't reach it." He spilled water down the front of his hospital gown than hung drably on his thin, hunched figure. "And now I can't even find the direction anymore."

"As far as I can tell, you're heading to where you'll see it first hand. Why else would God take a go player before his time? He must see you as a rival and wants to show you how its done."

Kuwabara reached out his hand. Ogata gripped it firmly. "Thank you, Seiji. Play well. If you do, I'll haunt you and show you how it's done."

Ogata took off his glasses and squeezed the hand a bit harder. "You'd better."

\-----

"Seiji, tell me about the damn game! I don't care what the hell young Touya was wearing!"

Ogata grabbed the man's hand and let their joined hands rest on the bedspread. "Ah, but the shirt he was wearing matched the blanket on your lap right now, so I couldn't resist."

The old man's eyebrows shot up just barely and he leaned back into the pillows a bit further. "Pink. A damn pink bedspread. What does this hospice think they're doing to this old man just because he can't see himself."

"You see nothing. Just pretend it's an infinite Room of Profound Darkness."

There was a tremble in the hand Ogata held. "I don't have much longer, Seiji."

Wiping his eyes below his glasses, Ogata squeezed back, but held himself back. "The sooner you go, old man, the sooner you'll get to play go again."

There were tears in Kuwabara's eyes this time as he fell asleep. Ogata continued to hold his hand for quite some time, even as he saw the heart beats on the monitor begin to slow as a game of go often would as it went into the end game. Even when the oxygen pump was unplugged by a nurse who came in and found them, and when a doctor told him he would be better off leaving, he held on, just barely. Before he finally pulled himself away, he pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the old man's mouth. "You never did get to see this new suit, did you?"

He took the stairs down instead of the elevator. He'd cut back on his smoking recently from having been in the hospital so much, and for all that it made him irritable as hell, it was helping his stamina.

When his mourning was held a week later, Ogata showed up nearly as everything was over. Most of the high-stakes members of the Go community had already left, but that was fine by him. The old man's ashes were sitting there, in a glorified pot. A rival... He approached the urn and lifted the lid. He dropped two things on top of the ash. One cigarette... the old man's kind, not his... and a black stone: polished onyx. He whispered to the portrait of the old man sitting at a go board with a victorious smile. He could just make out his own hand in the bottom corner of the picture, but he recognized the game easily without it: Kuwabara's last time holding on to a title. "There you go, old man. Tengen. You've got until I get there to think of a good response."

One of the old man's kids tried to thank him, and get him to sign the guestbook, or to stay for someone's sake. But that didn't matter. Go did. Death had nothing to do with go. The game played to defeat, but there was honor in go that was missing from life itself. For now, he still had games to play, and when he couldn't anymore, he'd pursue his rival again.


End file.
